duplicating a wing
 

Is there anyway I can dupe the wing and turn it round so it will fit underneath??

The only way I can think of is to turn the engines around separately, is there an easyier way?

hehe
---Duplicating objects and groups around a pivot point, via x,y or z axis--- (Ctrl-D)

Either move the objects pivot-point manually or press Ctrl-G to group an object or a set of objects, thus making maya set pivot-point to "worldspace-center" automaticly


1) Every object and group has a pivot point; press the "insert" button on the keyboard and move it if you need to.

Move it around in orthogonical view or klick and drag one of the axis-arrows/lines (no arrowhead!!!) indicating the pivot point.

Press "insert" again to transform the "headless-arrows" to return to the "move-object-itself-mode".

then...

2) Open the duplicate menu:
-reset the menu (is much faster than setting everything to 0 manually)
-In your case you would want to duplicate along the up-down axis (probably z axis)
-Type -1 in the move row, relevant to the z-axis.
-Press duplicate to mirror-copy the object or group.

And voila.

Be sure to reset the duplicate-menu so it will funcion as a usual copy/duplicate command (Ctrl-D) later on.

If you are smart, then try to use the world-center to act as a center of the project you are working on.

This might not be such a big a deal with the x-wing, but I found it totally neccessary with my Millennium-Falcon project.
It is much easier to mirror things if you have a very "symmetrical" project.

Excellent reply undseth! Cleared some issues for me also ...

Oh, you would want to group the wing, engine and the laser cannon first anyway.

Then duplicate...

And then move the group up or down to whatever position is fitting.

---

If you have grouped a set of objects, this group is selected this way;

1) Klick on one of the objets you know are in the group.
2) Press the up-arrow on the keyboard to select the (first) group setting.

If that group is a part of a bigger group, press up-arrow again to select the bigger group.

Happy to help you out! :)

There are things here and there that one didnt know of. I experience this bepuzzlement every now and then.

Oh I have a tip here, that might have gone unheard of.

If you say, want to make a shelf-button of the "grid-on/off" function. Do this:

Hold down the Shift + Ctrl key, and klick any function from the menus. Thus making a button in the shelf, presently visible.

One can fiddle and make your own icon also, if you dont like the default icons.
:)

Right on the spot again! although I already knew this little midget of info, I find it great that you want to share your knowledge with us.

I dare present yet another tip haha :)

Instead of working with a bunch of objects cluttering up your view either in shaded-mode or in wireframe, try this: (inverted hiding)

Select the object/objects you want to work with...
and press Alt + H to hide everything BUT the ones selected... then SHOW LAST HIDDEN (handy button) to make everything appear again.

Oh, antoher possibly handy tip; (lazy movement)

If you want to move something axial, but dont want to bother to klick the axial-arrows when moving.

First press w for movement...

Hold Shift + klick and hold the move-button on your mouse, AND move the mouse roughly along one of the axis.

The object will then move sturdy in x,y or z direction.

Lol! I suppose you had to use that tip a lot when modelling that falcon of yours huh? hehe

I can imagine: "..argghh! I picked the wrong rivet! .. where are you?!, come on! pick it! darn! pick it! ..." <undseth takes a gun and shoots the screen>

Yes your actually right adldesigner!

Took a while before i had the genius idea of implementing this particular tip.

Yet another tip for positioning lights.
(I have never tried this, but I'll do it soon)

Create a light...
Pick the light...
Klick look through selected and then you have a better view of your positioning of your lights.

Hmm, now that I think of it, I´m going to compile all these little tips in a new thread, with images explaining each and every one of them. I´ll give you the credit undseth. I just find them to be quite handy tips so might as well make them a bit more available right?

Thats a great idea adldesigner.
Too bad if these get lost... with time... like tears in the rain... BLADERUNNER :)

I remembered something just now, that I find most useful;

When working with nurbs surfaces, in tweaking times;
1) Assign the surface to a layer and ghost it
2) Then you can fiddle with all the curves/cv's without accidentally picking the nurbs-surface itself when tweaking it. And you get to see the results immdiatly, when watching the ghosted surface adjust itself to the repositioned cv's/curves.